Last Tuesday, I took a road trip to Chatanooga, Tennesse. We went there so we could help a family start homeschooling. The young boy in the video was 5 years old, and he was going to be homeschooled. We got tons of educational supplies for the young man, known as Grant. We played chess with him, did math with him, read to him, et cetera. Check out the day-by-day overview.

Tuesday

Tuesday is our day in New York City, so we went to our activites (Wayfinders, Architecture) then hit the road. We drove for 3 hours, had a meal at Red Robin, went for a couple more hours and stopped at a Super 8 in Virginia.

Wednesday

We drove till 5:00 and ate a delicious dinner at Urban Stack. Most hotels were booked solid, so we settled for a Comfort Inn by Lookout Mountain.

Thursday

We woke up and ate a nourishing breakfast (Froot Loops and Danishes). Our client is a successful entrepeneur, so we went to his office for a bit, got some pizza at Community Pie, and headed over to our client’s house ON Lookout Mountain. We played with Grant, and Drake (Grant’s older brother), went to the park, ate dinner, played some more, and headed back to the Comfort Inn.

Friday

Like yesterday, we got up and ate some Froot Loops (with real chemicals!). But this time we went straight to Lookout Mtn. and educated Grant. We left around 2:00 pm and headed to the Tennesse Aquarium. We ate a delightful meal at Sticky Fingers, and my dad ate a moon pie at the store across the street.

Saturday

We went to the library community center around 2:30. Seriously. I did not see anyone reading a book. Only kids playing video games on computers. Anyway, we did some work with him, then dropped him off at his house.

Sunday

We ate brunch with the family then hit the road.

Monday

We arrived back in New York

When my grandmother came to visit, she brought some ingredients so we could make some homemade root beer! We used a recipe from a book I have called The Big Book of Boy Stuff. It is a great book and I highly recommend it. It was a bit hard to make but it was fun. It was a little bit bitter but I liked it. We made it last Saturday and it was ready on Sunday. You can order root beer extract from the internet.

In the picture, the people are (from left to right) Sienna, Christine, Story, Silas, Steele, and me.

One week ago, I went to Phoenix! It was really fun! We stayed at the Arizona Waldorf Astoria Biltmore Hotel (you can get water for the fabulous deal of only $5.50 a bottle). The flight was boring and long from JFK airport to Phoenix. Our Aunt Maggie picked us up in her Sprinter van. In the car were our cousins, Sienna, Silas, and Story! I was really hungry, so we stopped at a taco place real quick. We went over to our cousins’ house and goofed around for a bit with my cousin Steele. After, we went to our hotel and went to sleep, exhausted.

The next day, I woke up around 6:00 am. My dad went for a walk. Christine snoozed until 6:30 am and Dad got lost and came back around 7:00 am. He said he saw two coyotes that scared the living daylights out of him. We went to breakfast at the golf course, where I had two fried eggs, some bacon, and some potatoes. It was great! My dad got a burrito and my sister got pancakes. Then we went back to the room and did some math (groan). After, our cousins Steele and Sienna came over and we played at the pool for 5 hours. For dinner, we went to a mexican restuarant where I blew up my mouth with an enchilada. It was the spiciest thing I’d ever eaten! Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

The next morning we went for a walk. For breakfast, we ate leftover pancakes. Afterwards, we checked out and our Aunt Maggie picked us up in a Yukon and we went to their library for half an hour and checked out their new house which will be done in December. Then we went to… Flagstaff! The ride was okay, but when we got there it was raining! So we relaxed for a bit and went to dinner at some place called Oregano. The pizza was good, and I tried one of my dad’s spicy wings, and blew up my mouth again. It was even spicier then that enchilada! It was like death-on-a-wing! Then we went back to their house in Flagstaff and went to bed. Well, going to bed was a diffucult. I had to share a bed with Silas, who I wasn’t sure if he was potty-trained or not, and Steele. At first Silas scared me and Steele by saying, “I’m gonna pee on you.” Then he farted on us. I was directly in the blast zone. Then Silas read his book (Bear in Underwear) out loud. Finally, I went to sleep.

The next morning, I woke up and helped Steele build his LEGO Imperial Star Destroyer. After doing some work (groan) we had breakfast, played (where the Imperial Star Destroyer was destroyed by that rebel Silas) and went to the Country Club, where there was a pool. Then the grownups ditched us with a babysitter for the rest of the night.

The next day was basically a repeat of the last except we went to a community barbecue around dinner time and there was no babysitter. For desserts at the barbecue there was an ice cream truck, but Aunt Maggie didn’t want to pay for ice cream so Chrissy and Sienna ate some nasty-looking magic bars while Uncle Ryan took pity on me and Steele and gave us ten bucks. BUT when we got to the ice cream truck they told us it was free. Chrissy and Sienna were furious (they wanted ice cream too).

The next morning I felt sick and tossed my cookies. I had a plain pancake for breakfast, but an hour later, I upchucked that too. But we had to go back to Phoenix that day so we packed up. Then everybody else ate lunch except for me because I didn’t want to throw up anything else. Then we got our bags into the Sprinter van and started the ride back to Phoenix. It was 4-hours long. Most of the trip, I either felt cold, hungry, tired, or sore. The girls were in the back singing Miss Mary Black, Quackadilly Oso, and other stupid songs I don’t want to talk about. Also, the air conditioner was blasting and all I had was my dad’s jacket to keep me warm. All while “Miss Mary Quack” or whatever it is came from the girls, who had huge blankets. Also, Uncle Ryan played The Factor Game with Sienna and Steele, where they had to factor the numbers 1-50. That was painful. Also, Story the baby was screaming her head off. When we got back to their house in Phoenix, I dumped myself on the couch and didn’t get up until Dad got some tacos for me. Then I jumped into bed.

The next morning was great! I felt a lot better, although I woke up to “Did John puke again?” from Sienna. We ate some breakfast and played, because this was our last day. They had a math teacher who Christine was not fond of, because she thought he was “stealing our cousins”. We went to this place called Short Leash for lunch, and it was pretty good. Our cousins had a skateboarding lesson, so we sat through that. Afterwards, we hung out at their house until it was time to go to the airport. Finally, we took a plane home.

My sister always says, “Boys’ heads are always in the cloud.” And I would return, “Really? The iCloud? The Microsoft Cloud?” But now, my head is really in a cloud. The Adobe Creative Cloud! A couple of months ago, my dad got Photoshop. Last week, he got the whole Creative Cloud! The first thing we used was Illustrator. I messed around with Illustrator (like Paint on steiroids) for a bit and plan to use it for my logo design buisness. The next day, we downloaded Audition (a sound editing program). We used it to crop the ads from the file from the first episode of his radio show. That was a long night. The next day, I messed around with After Effects (video effects). We are probably going to use Premiere (for video editing) and InDesign (for my Dad’s free PDFs). Warning: everything I tried is difficult to work with!

So my last stop before returning to New York was Bangkok.

Monday

We went to the Antara hotel and ate at a place in… Bangkok’s Chinatown. The steamed buns were really good, especially the sweet ones. Afterwards, we headed toward the MBK, a massive shopping mall. Then we went to the Asiatique riverfront plaza. Pooped, we took a ferry back to our hotel.

Tuesday

We ate a delicious breakfast (nom nom nom… danishes!), and headed to the Museum of Siam. It was a really cool museum, and I liked it a lot. Afterwards we headed towards a temple, then went back to the hotel for the pool. For dinner, we headed back to Asiatique. Then we went back to bed.

Wednesday

We went on the monorail to the 85-story Baiyoke Tower. There were great views, but Chrissy was more interested in her book. We took a tuk tuk ride to the Jim Thompson House, where this guy who pioneered silk from Thailand to the world lived. Then we had a little break at the hotel, because after we went to a 2-hour Dinner Cruise. On the boat, I felt a little bit woozy. Was it a wave of homesickness? Had I eaten some bad pad thai? Whatever it was I felt really sick for the rest of the trip. Afterwards, we went to the airport. The plane ride home was brutal. Even though Thai Air is really nice airline, I couldn’t sleep and had to go pee every 15 minutes. But we had buisness flight class tickets home from London, because we had to stop in London for a connecting flight. However, the buisness class on British Airways was even worse then the peasant class on Thai Air. The food was horrible, and they had no good movies. So I slept for most of the ride. When I woke up, we were almost there. Was it true? Was my beloved home only 2 hours away? We landed at JFK airport and returned to my long-lost home. I had a great expierience in London, and I hope to travel again soon.

So after my relaxing time in Chiang Mai, me and my family went to Chiang Mai International Airport, and had 2 hours to kill. My mom got some egg yolk bean paste, she said it looked really good. One long flight to Phuket later, we arrived in Phuket Airport. After a 45 minute cab drive, we arrived at our hotel, the Centara Grand Phuket. It was really family friendly, and me and my sister had two waterslides, a lazy river, a hot tub, a pool, and a cliff jump for leisure. So my mom checked us in, and then we were brought to our room. Everybody unpacked, and mom tried the egg yolk bean thing, and it turned out it was awful. After unpacking, I went to the pool with my sister and my mom. Afterwards, me and my family ate at one of the hotel’s various restaurants. Then we went to bed. The next day, me and my sister just went in the pool, on the cliff jumps, and down the waterslides. Then my parents dragged me and Chrissy “into town” for dinner. Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed. The next day we got up early for a speedboat tour. It was really fun! We got to go snorkeling! But somebody accidentally dropped their GoPro into the water. When we went home, we were really tired, so we went to bed. The next day was just like the second day. On the next day, we went… not home… but to Bangkok!